The United States may not be the most admired country in the world today, as once it was. But the economic decline of the US is still capable of doing much harm outside its borders as well as internally. Part of the underlying problem is an extremely unrepresentative government system of the US. Congress is currently dominated by entrenched special interests – “big money” — that want to preserve the status quo. This reality makes it very difficult for the executive branch to function day-to-day, still less respond creatively to new challenges.

There is a weak economic recovery under way. It is weak because most OECD governments have been persuaded by conservative economists that government debt is now much too high and that government deficits have to be cut by cutting welfare spending. As a direct consequence of austerity policies, unemployment is still too high, especially when under-employment and…

ABSTRACT: In this article we show that the application of flexible semi-parametric statistical techniques enables significant improvements in model fitting of macroeconomic models. As applied to the explanation of the past economic growth (since 1900) in US, UK and Japan, the new results demonstrate quite conclusively the non-linear relationships between capital, labour and useful energy with economic growth. They also indicate that output elasticities of capital, labour and useful energy are extremely variable over time. We suggest that these results confirm the economic intuition that growth since the industrial revolution has been driven largely by declining energy costs due to the discovery and exploitation of relatively inexpensive fossil fuel resources. Implications for the 21st century, which are also discussed briefly by exploring the implications of an ACEGES-based scenario of oil production, are as follows: (a) the provision of adequate and affordable quantities of useful energy as a pre-condition for economic growth and (b) the design of energy systems as `technology incubators’ for a prosperous 21st century.

Robert U. Ayres comments on a surprising lack of awareness about the role of energy as a driver of economic growth, for the INSEAD KNOWLEDGE series of videos. You can read more on this at http://goo.gl/Ewxvvn

The best way to maximize overall national energy efficiency is to decentralize the electric power production and locate it very close to heat users. Since quite a lot of our electric power is actually used to generate heat (e.g. in electric furnaces, or electrically heated buildings) it is entirely possible that a more rational distribution of electrical generation would actually cut electric power demand, while simultaneously cutting energy (exergy) use and carbon dioxide emissions.Continue reading →

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says in a stark report that most of the world’s electricity can – and must – be produced from low-carbon sources by 2050.If not, the world faces “severe, pervasive and irreversible” damage. The UN said inaction would cost “much more” than taking the necessary action.

The IPCC’s Synthesis Report was published on Sunday in Copenhagen, after a week of intense debate between scientists and government officials. It is intended to inform politicians engaged in attempts to deliver a new global treaty on climate by the end of 2015.

The report suggests renewables will have to grow from their current 30% share to 80% of the power sector by 2050. In the longer term, the report states that fossil fuel power generation without carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology would need to be “phased out almost entirely by 2100”.